VEP users now notified of summonses at border

JOHOR BARU: Vehicle owners who have signed up for Malaysia’s Vehicle Entry Permit (VEP) will now be informed of their outstanding Road Transport Depart­ment (JPJ) and police summonses whenever they enter the two land checkpoints here.

Variable message signage (VMS) displays are being used to alert VEP users of their outstanding traffic citations.

“So far, this is a good way to get foreign-registered vehicle drivers to pay up for outstanding summonses which are in the hundreds of thousands of ringgit over the years,” the official said, adding that the JPJ has been carrying out regular checks around the two land checkpoints in Johor to remind foreign cars to register for VEP.

The official said more than 20,000 vehicles from Singapore have been checked, with a few hundred reminders sent to vehicle owners.

To date, more than 150,000 people have registered for the VEP, and the volume of applications continues to remain high, with about 1,000 applications daily.

For now, Singapore-registered cars can still enter Johor without the VEP, while those who have not applied for a VEP will be issued a warning.

There are three VEP centres in Johor – Danga Bay, Iskandar Puteri and Skudai. There is also one in Woodlands, Singapore.

A member of the Singapore National Private Hire Vehicle Association (NPHVA) hopes that TCSens, the private vendor appoin­ted by JPJ to handle VEP matters, will open one more one-stop centre in the Singapore for the application and installation of RFID tags that form the basis of VEP.

He said there are workshops cashing in on the long queue by imposing a service charge to help with the VEP application and instal­lation.

“They are charging between S$100 (RM340) to S$150 (RM500) to help apply and settle VEP problems,” an official said.

“There should also be a one-stop centre in Singapore which can allow for application and installation at the same time,” he added.